Shiver
by Chesiere Cat
Summary: "Do we live in the same world, Kougami?" KougamixFem!Makishima. An experimental fic. One Shot.


**Shiver**

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**Disclaimer: **Psycho-Pass (c) Production I.G.

**Pairing: **Kougami x Fem!Makishima

**Rating: **PG-13

**Warning: **Genderbending, angst

**Note:** Written for KouMaki Shipweek

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Rain sounded. Heavy droplets as clear as the most magnificent crystal fell agains the old windowpane, persistently tapping and making indecipherable patterns on the other side of the glass. And yet, if the aged window could ever talk, it would mourn how both of its sides seemed unable to escape the rain. For its inner side, despite hidden from the sea and the sky, was equally as wet — splattered with warmer spray and blurred from the embrace of spreading steam. Whichever side, either world was entirely soaked and separated only by fragile glass.

The storm and the sea were ancient, but the small space inside the ship was a square touched endearingly by brownish rust. Rusty frames, rusty door, rusty colour. Dry blood diluted by water pooled around a pair of ivory feet.

Golden eyes watched the rusty pool swirled — all too languidly as if wanting to linger instead of leaving forever down the drain. Such colour vivid in her eyes, she reflected something could never be changed. The scent of blood stayed with her like eternal flowers blooming from corpses . It clung close, this scent of death, even as those fools cherished her of false purity and enticing fragrance.

Roses, violets, they said, with a touch of heliotropes. They praised, they raved, they whispered as they wrapped their arms around her; their voices all meaningless jabbers as syllables echoed in her ears. In a world with no meaning, she let their perverse desire ended with sanguine screaming. Her razor painted crimson arcs when it sang, but most of the time the music came instead from the strings of deluded puppets. Those sheep with immense desire, they sought for liberation to shed their wooly skin and turn into wolves. They danced, they squeaked, they struggled, they moved around in circle until the strings were cut.

Again and again and again and again. There lay heaps after heaps of broken puppets - their strings cut as their mistress became disappointed. Everyone, every talent, every toy… There was nothing irreplaceable. She had gotten tired of that boring world. And yet, she had chosen one more gamble. To insist on her humanity — for whether the nature of human was good or evil, they could still be judged — she had placed her hope in one man, hoping beyond hope that he could deliver her judgment, wishing beyond wish that he would abandon Sibyl's definition of crime.

Yet, despite that hope, she was still bent on destruction, denying the Prophetess. It was a challenge. It was a game. It was her way of living. An evidence of her idiosyncratic existence. Had he pulled the trigger, she would have instilled forever her living legacy in his mind. For the answer Kougami Shinya had given was what she had been waiting all her life. A connection between two humans who had acted by free will. Even if she had to curse him with an eternity of her memories.

Because something could never be altered. And Makishima Shogo still possessed that cruelty within her — that kind of sadistic humour that either charmed or scared people. Still, no cruelty of the race of men could ever surpass that of Goddess Fate. For Fate had the decision most twisted.

Pale hand caressed the wound on her chest with a butterfly touch. At first, it was a deep gash bleeding red between her breasts. She remembered droplets of life fleeting her; blood and sweats painting trails on golden crops. It was a deep wound and had not quite healed, and once healed completely, it would for certain leave a scar. A humourless smile graced her lips as she traced the cut as if in affection.

**Somehow she felt even more empty now that she was alive. **

Had Kougami Shinya decided this as her punishment? To rob her of sweet triumph, fettering her in this aimless journey? What goal to strive for, physically living in the land of debris overseas? To rot in lament because she was still in love with that city? Even though her paradise had long been lost ever since she was so little. Even when Mother Sibyl had forsaken her.

Mother, Mother, how could she sleep, knowing the truth of Sibyl's prophecy? Mother, sweet Mother, how could she lived on in peace, still obsessing to demolish Sibyl's very core? Attached was her to the brilliance of that city — that heaven she sought to destroy.

From behind one side of the window, water distorted her vision. Beyond the glass spread the endless horizon where the sky met the sea. She only saw water — the waves, the rain, and the rusty room's spray of shower as soppy bangs dripped more droplets onto her forehead, into her eyes. Sardonically, sensuous lips twisted as words from Milton poured like quicksilver in her mind.

_Me miserable! Which way shall I fly_

_Infinite wrath and infinite despair?_

_Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;_

A shiver ran through her spine. Her vision soon became blurry although she could not be sure it was due to the glass or her own blurry eyes. The rusty room swirled more with thickening colour. Oldish brown became vibrant red as the wound on her chest reopened. Blood gushed and spilled down her pale body, marring her no longer pure white.

_And in the lowest deep a lower deep,_

_Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,_

_To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven_

She laughed. She cried. She shivered. Her ears fell deaf, hearing not the banging on the door.

Colour began fading. Life was but delicate flowers wilting. And yet…

Before her entire world faded to black, someone forced the door open, and strong arms encircled themselves around her…

…

When she came to, the first thing she saw was the colour of his eyes. Black. Like the darkest shade in her dreams of shadow. Still, even if they were both black, she would be able to differentiate between that cold, cold shadow and the blackness of his eyes. Regaining more sense, she learned her torso was deliberately wrapped — bandaged so carefully to make sure she would stop bleeding. He had stolen death from her. Twice. As if her life was in no one's hand but his.

She lifted her gaze to squarely meet him, caring not one bit of her nakedness beneath the bandage and the sheet. She did not care whether he had seen all of her. Because for her, gender was nothing but social construct. It held no meaning as she only saw every person as one thing: a subject to test for the meaning behind human's existence. Still, she remembered that one time Kougami had asked:

"If it really holds no meaning, why did you have to disguise yourself?"

She had once preferred to live in the world of shadow. For in that world, male or female, neither did matter. For in that world, those with more power dominated and took whatever they wanted. A world full of cruelty, prospering with deceptions and agony as well as beauty and truth such that could never be found in the realm of the Prophetess.

**Still, even to that world, she was foreign. **

So she wandered from worlds to worlds, taking on various identities.

"Because in some worlds, it does."

And from most eyes, she concealed her true self.

"Do we live in the same world, Kougami?"

That one time, her voice had been barely above whisper; it sounded strange even to her as it sounded almost like a plea.

She had never gotten his answer.

And now she could not be certain whether Kougami cared. Male or female, she was still Makishima — the criminal who had ruined his life. And yet, as she waited for him to speak, to berate her of her attempted escape from future life, she only smelled his scent close to her. His hand, so warm, lightly traced where she had bled, slid lower and lower before resting on her abdomen. Oddly, the silver-haired female's heart raced. It raced the way it had never beaten. And slowly, she closed her golden eyes, wondering if she had started to see Kougami Shinya as a man instead of just a human among the flock of sheep.

The warmth, however, disappeared. When she opened her eyes, the man had already left. There was only cloud of smoke floating in that quiet room.

For once, in her long years of loneliness, Makishima Shogo thought she finally tasted true disappointment.

…

It had not stopped raining on the deck. Yet, Kougami thought it better to be here with his cigarettes. He stood under the shelter, watching the rain hit solid surfaces as light bounced off the metal rails. Bringing another cancer stick to his lips, he took a deep drag as mixed emotions clouded his eyes. A chain of smoke drifted, and so did his thoughts… Even if all of them kept circling around one entity.

He did not know what he should make now of Makishima. He knew that he still hated her. A month and a few weeks together would hardly change deep-rooted emotion. And yet, something else grew within him, and he blamed this seed called hatred that sprouted into obsession.

Black, black eyes stared silently at the rain-soaked deck.

Often, he kept replaying in his mind that bright, bright day when she stood there. He kept remembering how sunlight planted a kiss upon her silver tresses, making it blaze like holy fire. A beautiful halo for a sight so angelic.

And he had come to realise why he had left the room.

For all the cruelty she had done and traces of loneliness she had displayed, he feared to kiss her.

Even though her lips would be the most intoxicating ones he would ever taste… Because he knew they would be the most intoxicating he would ever taste… Kougami Shinya feared to kiss her.

"_Do we live in the same world, Kougami?" _

"Perhaps in another world…" He breathed as he crushed the spent cigarette beneath his foot.

**He feared to be in love.**

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**Fin**


End file.
